NBA DTC · Voice of the Fan — Wave 2 Findings

1 · Satisfaction & recommendation 2 · Themes by cohort Ecosystem visuals 3 · Experience drivers 4 · What detractors say 5 · Recommendations Data notes

01Overall satisfaction & recommendation

Key takeaways

Defend the App. Satisfaction (71→78) and recommendation (30→37) both rose significantly — the primary hub is the healthiest product in the portfolio.
Act on League Pass. Recommendation fell 20→15 and value ratings weakened — the monetization engine is the one product moving backward.
NBA ID is up, read with care. Satisfaction 77→81 and NPS 28→30, but a younger Wave-2 audience inflates part of the gain.
NBA.com is a baseline. 71 satisfaction, 23 NPS; not fielded in Wave 2, so no movement read.

OSAT favorable = top-two-box (4–5). The App NPS gain is statistically significant; League Pass and NBA ID changes are not. NBA.com was not fielded in Wave 2. NBA ID's gain coincides with a younger Wave-2 audience (18–24 rose from 18% to 27%). League Pass OSAT is shown Wave 1 only — see Data notes.
Product	OSAT — favorable	NPS	NPS change	Direction
NBA App	71% → 78% significant	30 → 37	▲ +7	Improving
NBA League Pass	65% (W1) · W2 not comparable	20 → 15	▼ −5	Weakening
NBA ID	77% → 81% directional	28 → 30	▲ +2	Improving
NBA.com	71% baseline	23 baseline	n/a	Baseline

02Top open-end themes per product — and by cohort

Key takeaways

One issue is shared by all four: access and blackouts — and it grew on League Pass (44%→52% of themes). Treat it as an ecosystem priority, not a single-product fix.
The App's narrative flipped positive. Praise is now the #1 theme; every complaint theme receded.
The priority cohort cut can't be produced in Wave 2 — subscriber status and age fields are absent (footnote). Where readable, TV users are NBA.com's weak spot and NBA ID's 55+ trail.

Themes are the share of substantive coded open-end comments, with the change from Wave 1 to Wave 2. Click any theme to read fan comments for it, tagged with that respondent's recommendation (NPS) and satisfaction (OSAT) scores.

NBA App Distribution hub

Theme	W1	W2	Δ
General praise	9	41	+32
Content & feature suggestions	17	19	+2
App performance issues	13	9	−4
Blackouts	18	9	−9
Pricing concerns (League Pass)	14	7	−7
Cross-device compatibility	12	6	−6
App navigation & findability	9	6	−3

NBA League Pass Monetization engine

Theme	W1	W2	Δ
Blackout restrictions for local teams	44	52	+8
Buffering & low resolution	5	7	+2
High subscription costs	8	6	−2
Poor performance on TVs	8	6	−2
Confusing menu navigation	1	4	+3

NBA ID Connective tissue

Theme (Wave 1)	Share
Blackout restrictions	14
General praise	14
ID vs App vs League Pass confusion	13
Lack of loyalty rewards	12
High subscription costs	9
New feature requested	8

NBA ID Wave 2 open-end volume is too thin for a ranked read (about 12% left a comment); Wave 1 themes give the stable picture.

NBA.com Browser distribution

Theme (baseline)	Prev.
Buffering & low resolution	6.5
New feature requested	6.1
Poor performance on TVs	6.1
New content suggestion	5.5
Blackout restrictions	5.1
High subscription costs	4.8
Confusing menu navigation	4.1

How the themes differ by cohort

Product	Cohort read available	What it shows
NBA.com	Device; age (partial)	TV users are the weakest cohort (navigation 3.54, load 3.33) and account for the "poor performance on TVs" theme; desktop users drive feature-request, buffering, and blackout comments; high-cost complaints skew ages 25–34.
NBA ID	Age; NEW/RETAIN tenure	The Wave 2 audience skewed younger (18–24 rose 18%→27%); fans 55+ trail on clarity, relevance, and rewarding.
NBA League Pass	Package — Wave 1 only	Blackout frustration is broad across both League Pass and League Pass Premium — not confined to one package.
NBA App	None in Wave 2	Wave 1 supported age, package, and geography cuts; these fields are absent in Wave 2.

Footnote: no audience fields (age, package/subscriber status, device, geography) were included in the Wave 2 data. Restoring them in Wave 3 is what makes the full themes-by-cohort view answerable across all products.

▣Ecosystem visuals

Three views of the same Wave 2 story — direction of movement, the shared complaint, and how every survey feeds one taxonomy. Hover elements for the underlying detail.

Figure 1 — Wave-to-wave movement, all four surveys hover a line or dot for the measure and its values

Figure 2 — The shared complaint: access, across every product hover a bubble for the theme share

Figure 3 — Four surveys, one shared taxonomy of the fan's voice hover a ribbon for the flow detail

03Experience drivers, satisfaction detail & fan verbatims

Key takeaways

App gains are broad, not narrow — every core driver improved and dissatisfaction sits under ~12% on all of them. Lock in, then invest in features.
League Pass's soft spot is content and value, not usability. Fix the value equation; the interface is holding.
NBA ID: rewards and relevance rose most; personalization is the strength to protect.
NBA.com: streaming is the clear weak point (35% favorable) and the most-mentioned driver — the first thing to fix.

The App and NBA.com share a performance battery; League Pass splits content vs. features; NBA ID uses a loyalty battery not directly comparable to the video products. Stream quality uses a separate rating scale and is shown on its own.

NBA App 6-item battery + OSAT + NPS Distribution hub

Favorable = top-two-box; dissatisfied = bottom-two-box. Core usability improved across the board.
Battery question	W1 fav.	W2 fav.	Δ pp	W2 dissat.	Confidence
Load Speed	63	72	+9	11.2	significant
UI Appeal	67	74	+7	9.2	significant
Ease of Navigation	67	73	+6	9.7	significant
Unique Content	63	66	+3	12.1	not sig.
Content & Features	67	69	+2	12.1	not sig.
Overall Satisfaction	71	78	+7	8.5	significant
Stream Quality — separate scale	68	74	+6	8.5	see note

Fan comments by battery item

Load Speed & performance

"Crashes & freezes a good amount especially on console. Sometimes takes a good amount of time to load games as well."

Content & Features · Unique Content

"With the paywall that is required to use the services we should be able to stream all games…"

"Pretty good app but does not show things like fines and techs — that's what I get from ESPN rather than the NBA app."

Stream Quality

"Streaming tends to always be smoother on ESPN and TNT games rather than League Pass games."

NBA League Pass 6-item battery + NPS Monetization engine

Content satisfaction is the clearest and only statistically significant structured decline. Overall satisfaction is not shown wave-over-wave for League Pass — see Data notes.
Battery question	W1 mean	W2 mean	Δ	Priority
Content Satisfaction	3.65	3.49	−0.16	Fix now
Features Satisfaction	3.66	3.54	−0.13	Watch
UI Appeal	3.85	3.75	−0.11	Watch
Ease of Navigation	3.92	3.84	−0.08	Watch
Load Speed	3.59	3.55	−0.04	Neutral
Stream Quality — separate scale	3.88	3.90	+0.02	Investigate

Fan comments by battery item (Wave 2)

Content & Features Satisfaction

"All games should be available for this price. I am a huge Celtics fan and if I would have realized the only team I want to watch is unavailable… I would not have bought this."

Stream Quality & Load

"Buffers frequently when streaming on my television."

"4 or more games even with multi view on PC lags a lot."

NBA ID 6-item loyalty battery + OSAT + NPS Connective tissue

Four of six loyalty measures improved significantly, and overall satisfaction rose directionally. This loyalty battery is not directly comparable to the video-product drivers.
Battery question	W1 mean	W2 mean	W1 fav.	W2 fav.	Confidence
Rewarding	3.75	3.99	58	65	significant
Relevance	3.80	4.04	60	67	significant
Clarity	3.87	4.09	63	71	significant
Community	3.88	4.09	65	72	significant
Voice	3.88	4.05	64	70	directional
Personalized	4.07	4.13	72	73	not sig.
Overall Satisfaction	4.05	4.18	77	81	directional

Fan comments by battery dimension

Clarity

"What even is it? Where are the benefits? Where's the central hub to manage and track benefits etc?"

Rewarding

"I've been an ID member for over 10 years & never have I been recognized or received anything to support my fandom."

NBA.com 6-item battery + OSAT · baseline Browser distribution

Current-state baseline only. Share of fan comments by driver: stream 46% · content & features 25% · load 14% · navigation 7% · UI 7% · unique content 1%.
Battery question	Fav.	Dissat.	Mean	Baseline read
Stream Quality — separate scale	35	15.1	3.53	Fix now — weakest
Load Speed	46	16.5	3.63	Watch
Unique Content	49	—	3.81	Support
UI Appeal	50	—	3.82	Support
Content & Features	52	9.9	3.85	Defend
Ease of Navigation	54	9.4	3.91	Defend
Overall Satisfaction	71	10.9	3.89	Defend

Fan comments by battery item

Stream Quality

"Sites with pirated streams have smoother quality than your web app."

Content & Features

"When I first got this, the games had a live stat tracker within the webpage/app… but it's gone now."

Ease of Navigation

"Confusing navigation. Sometimes just wanna see stats and struggle to find what I'm looking for."

04What detractors say

Key takeaways

Every product's detractors circle back to access, price, and streaming reliability.
App detractors shifted from "it's broken" to "I want more" — feature demand and League Pass pricing now lead, a healthier signal.
League Pass detractors are dominated by blackouts (41% of them, +35 vs. promoters).
NBA.com detractors are about TV playback and buffering.

NBA App

Gap = detractor% − promoter%. Pricing shows the sharpest separation.
Theme	% detr.	Gap
Content & feature suggestions	8.6	+3.2
Pricing concerns (League Pass)	6.6	+5.5
Blackouts	5.1	+3.0
App performance issues	4.3	+3.6
App navigation & findability	3.9	+2.9

"I was offered 12 months of League Pass for $55 but got charged the full $179 so I feel like I got scammed…"

NBA League Pass

Blackout mentions among detractors nearly doubled from Wave 1 (23%→41%).
Theme	% detr.	Gap
Blackout restrictions for local teams	41.3	+34.9
High subscription costs	6.3	+6.3
Buffering & low resolution	5.6	+4.0
Poor performance on TVs	4.0	+3.4
Slow loading speeds	2.4	+1.3

"It's an awful app… criminal how much you charge for terrible video quality and a horribly glitchy experience."

NBA ID

Rewards and clarity remain the recurring proposition gaps.
Theme (Wave 1)	% detr.	Gap
High subscription costs	2.6	+2.5
Confusion: ID vs App vs League Pass	2.6	+2.2
Blackout restrictions	2.0	+0.8
New feature requested	1.3	+1.2
Login / account management	1.3	+1.2

"Stop charging an arm and a leg."

NBA.com

Streaming and TV reliability are the dominant detractor drivers.
Theme	% detr.	Gap
Poor performance on TVs	13.9	+3.1
Buffering & low resolution	11.1	+3.4
Blackout restrictions	8.3	−0.9
Desire for ad-free viewing	5.6	+4.0
Difficulty searching for content	4.2	+4.2

"There are too many ads."

05Recommendations

Top priorities

Close the access / blackout gap — the biggest lever, and it touches every product.
Protect the League Pass value proposition — access, price, and pricing transparency together.
Lock in App gains, then invest in features and streaming reliability across the ecosystem.

Framed by each product's role in the DTC funnel: the App and NBA.com are the distribution platforms, NBA ID is the connective tissue, and League Pass is the monetization engine. Experience improves where the league controls the software and erodes where it controls the rights.

1Close the blackout and access value gap

The largest lever across the ecosystem. Blackouts are a top-five detractor driver in all four products and account for 41% of League Pass detractor mentions, rising from 44% to 52% of themes. Because League Pass is the monetization engine, this is a drag on the whole DTC strategy. Even partial access wins — more national or local games in-app — would move recommendation more than any interface work.

2Protect the League Pass value proposition

League Pass is the only product moving backward: content satisfaction fell significantly (3.65→3.49), NPS dropped 20→15, and the detractor base grew, led by blackouts and buffering. The core issue is cost without the access fans expect. Pair the access work with clearer value communication and pricing transparency — the "offered $55, charged $179" complaint is a trust problem.

3Lock in the App gains, then shift from stability to capability

The primary hub is delivering: load speed 63→72, satisfaction 71→78, NPS 30→37, praise now the top theme, dissatisfaction under 13% on every driver. Defend that, then meet the feature demand that now leads detractor comments — personalized dashboards, multiview for everyone, game-flow and score views, 4K and autoplay — while clearing residual performance friction (login loops, occasional crashes).

4Make streaming reliability a cross-product priority

Buffering and low-resolution playback are top detractor drivers on both League Pass and NBA.com, where stream quality is the weakest item (35% favorable) and 46% of fan comments. Read the open ends alongside the structured stream scores, whose eligible base and scale vary. Invest in playback stability, especially on connected devices.

5Fix TV and cross-device execution specifically

TV-led users are NBA.com's weakest cohort, "poor performance on TVs" is its leading detractor theme, and the same pain recurs on League Pass and the App. Targeted TV and Android-TV QA and playback tuning is likely to return more than a broad redesign.

6Sharpen NBA ID around clarity and tangible rewards

The connective tissue is strengthening — four of six loyalty measures up significantly, satisfaction 77→81 — but the enduring complaints are clarity ("what even is it?") and thin rewards ("never been recognized or received anything"). Make the value explicit, tie it clearly to League Pass and the App, and add visible, tangible perks. Fans 55+ trail most.

7Restore the audience-metadata pipeline for Wave 3

The priority cohort question — top themes by subscriber status and age — cannot be answered for the App or League Pass in Wave 2 because the appended audience fields are absent. Restoring them, lifting NBA ID open-end completion above ~12%, and re-fielding NBA.com would make the full themes-by-cohort view available and is the single highest-value program fix.

06Data notes & open items

League Pass overall satisfaction — treat as not wave-comparable

The Wave 2 League Pass satisfaction item appears to use a narrower 2–4 response range, while Wave 1 uses the full 1–5. That scale-format difference makes a wave-over-wave OSAT comparison unreliable, so it is not featured here. NPS and the six battery items are the cleaner comparable reads for League Pass this wave. Recommended action: validate the Wave 2 questionnaire and coding for this item before reporting any OSAT movement.

Cohort metadata is missing in Wave 2

The appended audience fields (age, package/subscriber status, device, geography) are absent from the Wave 2 App and League Pass data, so themes-by-cohort cannot be produced for those products this wave. These fields were present in Wave 1. Restoring them for Wave 3 unlocks the priority cohort analysis.

Coverage limits on the qualitative read

NBA ID's Wave 2 open-end completion is about 12%, too thin for a ranked theme read; its Personalized dimension has no dissatisfied comments to show. NBA.com open-end coverage is 28%. NBA.com was not fielded in Wave 2 and is reported as a single-period baseline.

Stream quality is a separate measure

Stream quality uses an Excellent-to-Poor rating with an "I don't stream" opt-out, distinct from the 1–5 agreement battery, and its eligible base shifts by wave (42%→88% on the App). It is reported on its own rather than pooled with the other items.

Seasonal context

The two waves fall in different parts of the season and exact fielding dates are unconfirmed, so wave-over-wave movement carries seasonal context alongside product change. No dated product-release log is available to attribute movement to a specific change.

Dimension Labs · NBA Direct-to-Consumer Voice of the Fan · Wave 2. Figures shown as percentages (favorable = top-two-box, dissatisfied = bottom-two-box) and means on a 1–5 scale.